I have an 03 Duratec 2.3 with the 5 speed. Today I noticed the transmission sounds like it has rocks in it. If the truck is in neutral with the clutch out or in it won't make a sound. Push the clutch in by itself and no rattle but as soon as you put it in gear the rattle starts again. When taking off from a stop you can hear it get louder then over 2500 it goes away. It does it in any gear. Could it be a throwout bearing or input shaft bearing? The truck only as 67,000 miles on it. What are my options with fixing / diagnosing it? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

i'd say throw-out bearing....my 87 rattled real bad around idle and squealed at certain RPM's

my 96 is starting to do it too but i'm a long way from changing it and i'm pretty sure the bigger tires caused it

but if you go as far as changing it out.....i'd just get a clutch kit as well
that way you replace EVERYTHING while you're in there

 

UPDATE: The truck left me conveniently stuck at autozone last night. The transmission would NOT shift into first or reverse or any other gear once I got it into neutral. I went inside an bought the Haynes book. The troubleshooting section mentioned air in the hydraulic clutch line. I was able to crawl under the truck and with the help of the wife bleed the slave cylinder. Got back in the truck and fired it up....no noises at all. The rattling was gone and the transmission slipped into first and reverse smoother than it has since I bought it. Maybe this will help someone else out.

 

Then prepare to do a clutch job soon. The slaves on these things are junk and to change it you have to drop the tranny.
Search the forum for slave cylinder and be sitting down when you see how many pages show up.



ETA not as bad as I thought , only 500 threads.